


A Radiant Darkness

by Kingmaking



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingmaking/pseuds/Kingmaking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They crown them in purple and gold and red like blood, on the sunniest day Maric has ever seen. The heat is suffocating; the sunlight makes Rowan’s hair shine like copper.</p><p>The crown is heavier than he thought it would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Radiant Darkness

**I**.

They crown them in purple and gold and red like blood, on the sunniest day Maric has ever seen. The heat is suffocating; the sunlight makes Rowan’s hair shine like copper.

The crown is heavier than he thought it would be.

 

**II**.

Loghain is gone from Denerim not even a month after the coronation, full of promises to write letters and come visit in the summer. Maric doesn’t see him again until a year after, on the occasion of a tourney in Highever, which Rowan finds a reason not to attend. Again, Loghain promises to write more.

If Rowan ever receives anything from him, she doesn't talk about it.

 

**III**.

“One sovereign it’s a boy,” says Eamon. “Or perhaps a baby whale? Can you even _move_?”

Rowan, in the ninth month of a pregnancy that came as a surprise Maric isn't entirely sure she appreciates ("I can barely move, I cannot run, I cannot ride, I cannot fight - by the Maker, _never again_ "), turns to glare. Her brother dodges the first cushion she throws at him in a graceless manner; the second hits him right in the face. The third accidentally hits Teagan.

“I did nothing to you!” he exclaims with false indignation. “I demand an apology.”

“I’ll leave you a castle in my will,” Rowan promises. “Rainesfere, perhaps?”

 

**IV**.

“GET OUT! OUT, OUT, OUT!” Rowan shouts. Beams of sweat are running down her forehead, she has thrown the last two cups of water Maric brought her at the wall and, frankly, he’s never been more terrified. “This is your fault!”

Maric somehow thinks answering to that is a good idea. “Well, obviously, but-” He is hit in the face by a pillow. “I’ll, huh, wait outside. You can do it! I believe in you. I'll be sure to collect our money from Eamon if it's a normal baby and not a w-”

“ _GET OUT!_ ”

 

**V**.

Letters full of congratulations and well wishes come from all over Ferelden – even some from Orlais, and Maric could _swear_ they smell like cheese, they do. The shortest ones are from Gwaren, for Loghain was never a man of many words. There is one from the Teyrn to his King, and one from the man to his old friend, too.

And there is one from the Teyrn to his Queen. When Maric comes to wish her a good night, he finds Rowan has fallen asleep with the paper carefully folded in her hand. If she ever replies, he doesn't know. 

 

**VI**.

Cailan turns two. Maric showers him with gifts of all sorts; Rowan gives him a wooden sword. From Gwaren comes a ridiculously small toy shield - wooden, too. Maric wonders if Loghain knew for the sword. “Anora’s idea,” he will say about it, years later.

Rowan doesn’t let Cailan play with either, not yet anyway.  _What need for it, anyway?_ Maric thinks – the old witch from the Wilds and her strange prophecies linger at the back of his head, cold, and colder still when he’s alone in the dark. Which isn't often, for Rowan is watching. He wonders if she has nightmares, too. 

He wonders whether Loghain's absence makes her happy or sad, or both.

 

**VII**.

“I thought I could go to Gwaren in the summer. You could come too, if you-”

“One of us has to stay here,” Rowan immediately replies. It’s the same excuse, always, it’s been for years, yet Maric still feels the sting of disappointment. He thought that perhaps, with time... “But you’re free to go,” she continues. “Of course.” She picks little Cailan off the floor, as though to make a shield of him. The boy wraps his arms around her neck and sings _mama, mama, mama_. "I'm not feeling too well these days, anyway. I need rest."

It's a lie, of course. She holds feasts while he's gone, goes out to ride on horseback in the countryside, visits her brothers in Redcliffe, visits the Couslands in Highever and tries to teach their son how to shoot a bow, but Arl Howe's boy is better, or so she writes in the letters she sends to Gwaren for him - only for him, as though the man he's visiting wasn't one she loved, once, too. She marvels at how Cailan follows Fergus Cousland around like a puppy, asks after Lady Celia and little Anora, but her words are never for Loghain. 

Maric wonders whether Rowan's indifference makes him happy or sad, or both.

The first signs of her sickness appear not long after he returns from the south, full of stories she does not want to hear.

 

**VIII**.

Teagan shouts at Eamon, who shouts at the Circle healers, who shout at each other. “Do something,” Teagan pleads; “Do something!” Eamon commands. The templars who came with the mages pace restlessly in the corridors, offer advice they think will help, offer to pray or sing the Chant or fetch the Revered Mother.

Maric holds Rowan’s hands in his, kisses her fingers and counts how many times per day she is strong enough to sit or talk or smile. The first time she coughs up blood, in the last days of summer, he calls for the healers like a frightened child. They look upon their King and Queen with pity, and Maric cannot tell who it is most for.

 

**IX**.  


Later, much later, Loghain will ask: “But what was it?”

“I do not know.”

A silence. “Did she suffer?”

A silence. “No.”

And Maric will think: _You should have been there_.

And Loghain, somehow, will say: “I know.”

 

**X**.

Later still, Maric will think of the last times. The last time he kisses her, with blood on her lips and the salt of tears on his. The last time the nannies bring Cailan, almost three. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” Rowan whispers, and kisses the boy’s golden hair, and sends him away before he can see her cry. “He is young. He will forget he ever saw me like this.” There is a terrible strength in her voice.

“Don’t say these things,” Maric begs. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and holds him, like she used to when they were little more than children wearing crowns. This is the last time, too.

 

**XI**.

He falls asleep with his head on her stomach, one of her hands on his cheek, the other stroking his hair as though he were the sick one. When he wakes up, she is gone.

The guards of the palace crawl their way to their King more than they run, when his first cry echoes in the halls; their hearts are heavy with the answer to a question they barely need to ask themselves.

“Let go,” says Mother Ailis, hours later; her voice is a plea, a prayer. “Let go, let go.” Maric doesn’t hear anything.

 

**XII**.

The Circle mages leave in the dead of winter, when the sun shines a bright white and wraps Denerim in crude, brutal light. Maric stares at the little silhouettes until they disappear over the horizon and tries not to hate them.

“They’re afraid,” comments Teagan. “Eamon said it was their fault. He said all Rowan had was a cold and they made it worse with their magic.”

“Perhaps,” says Maric, and it’s the first word he’s spoken in days. He doesn’t see his brother-in-law bow at the waist and leave, after his silence goes on for too long. He doesn’t see a lot of things, these days.

 

**XIII**.  


He gives himself to the darkness of his chambers after they properly prepare her body, her ashes in a golden urn he cannot bear to look upon. The servants bring food he does not touch, letters he does not open, friends he does not wish to see. There is a funeral he attends with closed eyes and shaking hands. Someone – perhaps Eamon, perhaps Teagan, perhaps Teyrn Cousland and his lady wife – helps him back to his chambers after his knees half-buckle under him.

The time he does not spend sleeping – dreaming of Rowan and the war and _Rowan_ and how the disease seemed to melt away her flesh and _Rowan_ and how it left her skin wax-like and _Rowan_ , _Rowan_ , _Rowan_ – he spends with Cailan, who is far too young to understand. “Mama has gone on a long journey.”

“Will Mama come back?”

“Yes,” Maric lies. _It is easier this way_. “Yes. One day, I promise.”

 

**XIV**.  


Loghain asks: “But what was it?”

“I do not know.”

A silence. “Did she suffer?”

A silence. “No”. _It is easier this way._

And Maric thinks: _You should have been there._

And Loghain, somehow, says: “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Old af and originally posted to Tumblr, but who doesn't need some nostalgia in their life,  
> http://tinyurl.com/gplrswo

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Blessed Alternative](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335007) by [rhoswenmahariel (salutationtothestars)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/salutationtothestars/pseuds/rhoswenmahariel)




End file.
